


names

by hyphae



Category: League of Legends
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-22
Updated: 2019-05-22
Packaged: 2020-03-09 13:23:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18917884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hyphae/pseuds/hyphae
Summary: It's a powerful thing.





	names

He didn't have a name until Azir spoke it.

To his mother, and to the ones who employed him as little more than a child, he was always just "boy." The children who played in the mud and dirt of the marketplace near the home he used to live in with his mother, called each other by jeers and insults. For Xerath, they didn't like how he was quiet, didn't like how he could read.

Azir liked that he could read. Azir liked everything about him, and told him so, the young prince's naive candor turning the other boy's cheeks hot. Azir laughed, and smiled, with a carefree air that Xerath couldn't turn his eyes away from. And when he asked Xerath for his name, and Xerath could not oblige him, Azir's stubborn insistence gave rise to the gift that would shatter both their lives, and their worlds.

A name. How could a boy know what kind of power he wielded when he bestowed something like it? Because now Xerath could taste the hint of what he'd always been denied, and taken for granted that he would never have, the recognition that he was an individual and had entitlements as a creature who walked the Earth. And maybe it would have been better, if he had never been allowed to imagine such a thing at all.

But Azir had said it. One blistering hot day in the Great Library when the sun shone broken rays through dusty shelves of scrolls and parchments, Azir told him that he had to have a name. And that he'd thought of one at last, hidden in stories of heroes' exploits in the history of Shurima. "A steadfast friend. Someone who shares. Xerath," said the young prince. "Because we'll be together always."

Xerath had repeated the name to himself. His tongue rolling on the syllables.

At home in the dark, he would say it to himself, but in whispers, lest his master or one of the servants of the household heard. He didn't know why the secret made his heart jump with excitement, or why it would mean everything in the world to him if he could hear Azir say it again.

Azir did say it again. Many times. On starry evenings out on the field, two boys drawing out celestial workings on a piece of parchment, and Azir would look at him elated, the starlight reflected in his eyes. On quiet nights after he had moved into the slaves' quarters at the palace, and Azir would steal in, joining him under his blankets and complaining of being lonely. Xerath would rest his head on his bony forearms and observe his friend's face, who was always so quick to fall asleep, in its peaceful breaths and ponder the lips that were the only ones who had ever spoken the name that was his.

He would say it less and less as the years went on and he was consumed by other distractions. Sometimes Xerath's own was the only voice that would pronounce his name, and he made sure to speak it aloud from time to time, as he conducted his research in deeper and more remote libraries of the realm. He remembers the day when he confronted Azir about his false promises, and how his name had soured on Azir's lips then, as the other stated it with such a resounding finality, a voice of command rather than one of friendship and fraternity, and the illusion shattered. And Xerath, in that bitter moment and in the ones that followed, knew that this gift that had granted him so much life had been carelessly given, and that he would be a fool to let any man have that much power over him, now and forever after.

He heard it again on the steps of the sun disc, when the newly to-be-Ascended emperor pronounced it to him with so much affection and love, and it was very close to what he'd always wanted for years and years.

But that was a long time ago. And Xerath just smiled.


End file.
